Towers would like to build his team on the Minnesota Plan

When asked about the Minnesota Twins on any given day in the past two decades, Padres General Manager Kevin Towers often has spoken with strong admiration.

A longtime scout himself, Towers is impressed by the Twins' scouting ability and the stability in their scouting ranks. He also admires the organization's teaching skills.

With the Twins in San Diego Tuesday, Towers again touched on those observations.

"You've had stability in the front office and with the manager, the scouts and the development staff," he said. "You have scouts who have been there forever.

"The Twins go very deep into other farm systems and do a great job of learning other players. They are very thorough in the scouting of other farm systems."

Towers said he regretted trading a Single-A shortstop who would become a solid major leaguer, Jason Bartlett, to the Twins for Brian Buchanan in July 2002.

Even as Twins players come and go, the organization finds and develops replacements who, whether as talented as their predecessors or not, show similar characteristics that Towers admires.

"They're fundamentally sound," he said. "The way they teach things and do things, they are very consistent.

"They don't beat themselves."

The Twins have won two World Series titles, but Towers senses that they get overlooked. "You don't read a lot about them in the national media or see them on TV a lot," he said. "They're kind of under the radar -- but they just go out and win. Look at their first baseman (Justin Morneau) and catcher (Joe Mauer). You don't hear a lot about them, but how many teams have a first baseman and a catcher as good as those guys?"

Notes

-- Brian Giles and Kevin Kouzmanoff were back in the lineup Tuesday night. Kouzmanoff missed six games because of back pain. Giles was out two games because of a hamstring strain, and his left shoulder will require treatment indefinitely.

-- Towers plans to scout Double-A San Antonio next week and will see starting pitchers Will Inman, Steve Garrison and Matthew Buschmann.

-- Manager Bud Black said catcher Josh Bard is still at least two weeks from coming off the disabled list.

-- In this age of fancy statistics, RBI have become almost passe, but not to Black, who expounded on the subject when commenting on Padres cleanup man Adrian Gonzalez, whose RBI ratio of one per 4.7 at-bats ranks fifth in the NL (Ryan Ludwick of St. Louis is first, followed by Ryan Howard of Philadelphia, Lance Berkman of Houston and Chase Utley of Philadelphia).

"For me it's about RBI and runs scored," Black said. "How about knocking in runs? How about the ability to get a guy in? To get in a guy from third against tough pitching? RBI, man."